


Consume Me (just don't leave me)

by Lily_rizzy



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: AU, Light Smut, M/M, Singer AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 07:21:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12206517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_rizzy/pseuds/Lily_rizzy
Summary: It began with a kiss.Or maybe it was the eye fucking, the wanting looks following Robert around the room as he performed.Maybe it was the sex.Robert doesn’t know (and frankly doesn't care) which makes him a worse person.-OrThe club singer AU that no one asked for.





	Consume Me (just don't leave me)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is. 
> 
> I started this months ago and finished it tonight so I hope it's not too terrible and you enjoy!
> 
> All mistakes are my own, but obviously all the songs are not! I in no way own copyright to the lyrics, I just think they're beautiful and wanted to include them. I will list them in the order they appear at the end so please please check them out, they're all amazing. 
> 
> Most are from the same artist (Marian Hill) and while I can't imagine either Robert or Aaron singing them exactly how they are actually, I love the lyrics and feel they fit really well with the character so! 
> 
> Enjoy.  
> Lily x

It ended with a shove.    
  
Robert wished he could say it ended with something more romantic but it was definitely a shove.    
  
"How could you do that to me, Aaron? Get up in front of all those people and sing about us like that."  
  
_I'll bet you miss me, it's not the same between your thighs._  
  
Aaron's debut performance had been a success at the cost of their secret being sung about in a packed room and in front of a potential new producer. He'd have more than enough offers of alternate contracts and signings by tomorrow morning to get out of White Records and never have to play in White Room again. Aaron probably thought it had been worth it.    
  
"Oh come on, Robert. No one knows who the song's about if anyone! If I didn’t know any better, I'd say you were paranoid." Aaron's smirk is enough to make Robert want to punch him and kiss him. He's not sure in which order.    
  
_I wish you happiness but, I know she ain't what you want._    
  
"You could have outed me, Aaron."    
  
The smirk doesn’t fall from his face. "Maybe you shouldn’t have stared at me like that while I was performin' then."    
  
You say you'll leave her, but you're forever by her side.  
  
How could Robert not stare? Aaron owned the stage the same way he'd begun to own Robert these last few weeks; irreparably. How was Robert meant to slope back to Chrissie's bed now that he'd had more than a taste of temptation? All the risks seemed worth it when he was underneath Aaron.    
  
_If you're choosing me, love, you're running out of time._  
  
"I'll forgive you, Aaron, but don’t you dare do anything like that again." Roberts backing him against the wall, hands either side of his neck. Pressed flush against each other he can feel Aaron start to stiffen under him. Aarons' head tilted towards him until he's breathing in the breath Aaron breathes out.    
  
"Not a chance," Aaron whispers, words ghosting over his cheek to his ear. Aaron shoves Robert backward, two flat palms against his chest. "We're over."    
  
_I love you then I hate you, I can't make up my mind._  
  
He leaves Robert alone in the dressing room, an aching cock and a disappointed feeling settling in his stomach that he refuses to call it heartbreak. Not yet.    
  
_In case you're listening, please pack your shit and say good-bye._

* * *

 

It began with a kiss.    
  
Or maybe it was the eye fucking, the wanting looks following Robert around the room as he performed.  
  
Maybe it was the sex.    
  
Robert doesn’t know (and frankly doesn't care) which makes him a worse person.    
  
_I've got this thing, gonna' blow your mind._    
  
He'd been giving his usual cocky performance, the headline act in the White Room as usual (the perks of being engaged to the owner's daughter) when he'd noticed Aaron sat with Lawrence in the far corner table. Lawrence was saying something to Aaron but his attention was focused on giving a Robert a look that made him feel he was performing naked.    
  
A look that said 'I want you naked.'    
  
_I got this thing, gonna tie your tongue._  
  
His eyes had followed Robert all throughout the song and for some reason, he knew in his bones that when he went to his dressing room, Aaron would be leant up against that door waiting for him.    
  
"Can I help you?" Robert had asked calmly, dismissively, but he knew that his eyes were dancing.    
  
"Depends," Aaron leant past him to open the door and walked through it, throwing a glance at Robert over his shoulder, "Want to find out?"    
  
_You wanna try, come and have your taste._  
  
Robert looked both ways to make sure no one was coming before he followed Aaron in.  
  
"What's this about?" He asked, but now he was smirking back at Aaron, blood running like a river through his veins to one particular place. Aaron was clearly done playing dumb, stalked closer to Robert.    
  
"You know what," he murmured before putting his mouth over Roberts. There was no messing around, no gentle touches. It was tongue and teeth straight away and it made Roberts head spin, dizzying. Intoxicating. Dangerous.    
  
_This thing won’t stop, till you can’t see straight._  
  
It's Aaron's hand on his throat, scratching like a promise for more manhandling to come, that snaps Robert back to reality. Half undressed both of them, and he's pushing Aaron away, telling him he can’t do this.    
  
"I'm engaged." He tells him.    
  
"I know." Aaron answers "hasn't stopped you this far." Robert knows it's not going to stop him in the future, but he needs to play this game right. Aaron is too addictive to lose in one hit, needs him rung out for all he's worth.    
  
"Well, I'm stopping it now. This was a mistake."    
  
Aaron throws him one last look of contempt, annoyance before stalking out the room muttering about "closet cases," under his breath as he goes.    
  
Robert looks after him, can't wait for the next time he can get Aaron pressed against him like that. He's something Robert didn’t realise he was craving until that night.    
  
_You think it's love, but you think too much._  
 

* * *

 

The first time they do have sex is a memory Robert likes to revisit often, in boring contract meetings, when he's supposed to be watching the new talent perform and when he's performing seductive songs on stage (he loves it, even more, when Aaron's in the audience).    
  
He especially likes to revisit it when he's alone and naked and bored.    
  
_I've been tryna' wipe you outta my mind_  
  
Because this is what sex with Aaron was meant to be, was what it started out as. A game to play, something to make him feel alive because he was bored. Bored in his career and bored in his relationship with Chrissie. The spark was fading thick and fast.    
  
With Aaron, it was an inferno that was blazing, almost out of control but not quite.    
  
"Fuck me," Aaron demands into his mouth as he crowds Robert against the back of the door to the dressing room a few nights after their first kiss.    
  
_Thought I could deny this craving, caught me gazing, now I'm caving in._  
  
"Here?" Robert questions, but he knows it will be. His shirt is already on the floor, Aaron's infuriatingly baggy jeans are already undone and Robert's shoving his hand down the front of them to _feel._  
  
Aaron doesn't answer, only smirks at the breathy moan Robert lets out when he gasps at the extent of Aaron's length.  
  
"Good to see you're not a bottom because you've got nothing notable in your pants," Robert says because of course, he has to be a dick.  

But Aaron just scoffs, leans in and licks a hot wet stripe from his collarbone, up his neck to right behind his ear.    
  
_I've been tryna kick you outta my head._  
  
"Are you going to keep being a cocky shit, or are you going to get on with it?"    
  
Robert wastes no time spinning him around, Aaron's chest pressed up against the door while he begins to undo his own trousers. He sinks his teeth into the back of Aaron's shoulder as he slides in, minimal lube and no fingers to prepare Aaron.    
  
Something tells Robert that he likes it to hurt.    
  
It's quick and rough and dirty. It makes Robert feel alive.    
  
_Don't know how to fight it, tell me baby what do you think?_  
  
If you'd asked him back then if he was out of his depth you'd never have gotten him to admit that while he wasn't yet, he could be very soon.    
  
_Couldn't see, that we were right in front of me._

* * *

 

The sex carries on, on and off and on again for months. It's incredible, exciting and keeps something burning just beneath Roberts skin.    
  
He has Aaron wherever he can. In his dressing room, in the empty club when he closes, in Roberts car, in Aaron's uncle's garage. (Robert can't pretend that mussed up mechanic Aaron doesn't do anything for him.)  
  
_Can't wait too long, till I call you back_  
  
Every time Robert slopes back to the White's mansion, back to his (soon to be) marital bed and Aaron pretends not to care.    
  
("I'm never going to leave her.")  
  
("I'm not gay, Aaron.")    
  
("It's not just the money or the fame, I love Chrissie.")  
  
He lets Aaron fuck him the first time after his first performance in the club, which he nails of course, even if it is only a cover. He lets Aaron push him on his back, open his legs and they fuck face to face for the first time.  
  
_You are all I need right now, won't you pick me up don't let me down_

Robert has to close his eyes when he comes.    
  
He loses himself, over and over but always manages to come back. He keeps himself in check, reminds himself that this is temporary and as soon as he's said "I do," he'll walk away.    
  
Except one day he's not so sure he could.    
  
_I've been thinking, what would I do without you?_  
  
He can't pretend that he can walk away anymore and he can't pretend that he knows when Aaron resurrected this power over him to make him stay.    
  
Slowly things become to mean more, like the smile Aaron will give to him and only him from across a crowded room or the way he'll hold Robert as he shakes himself out of nightmares about barn fires and burning screams.                   
  
"I know you're not going to leave her," one day in Chrissie and Roberts bed. She's out of town for a club promotion Robert managed to wriggle his way out of.    
  
A few weeks ago Robert would have kissed the worried look from Aarons' face, told him that half the fun was knowing they only had so much time, that they might never have enough.    
  
_Tell me what I need to hear, Or just hold me till' I disappear._  
  
Now he's sure they never will.  
  
"I don't want to talk about Chrissie," he says, honest and eyes burning. Blood singing.    
  
_I could keep you but I'm not sure that I want to._  
  
The look on Aaron's' face tells him he's finally said the right thing.    
  
Or the wrong thing, depending on the way you look at it.    
  
_I've been thinking, I would be fine, is that true?_  
  


* * *

 

  
It takes another month and the death of Katie to change things even more.    
  
 She 'falls,' from the balcony section in the White Room after confronting Robert about what she's seen on the CCTV while snooping around the club after hours. Robert feels awful about the shove he gives her in anger while she's spitting accusations about being gay and a cheat in his face. He calls the ambulance straight away.    
  
Well, after deleting the tapes and calling Aaron over, of course.    
  
(The footage of him and Aaron going at it in the hallway outside his dressing room is so graphic he's sad to see it go.)  

He's honest with Aaron, tells him what he's done. Tells him it was an accident.    
  
"Okay," Aaron says, and just like that he agrees to help Robert, give him an alibi. He's going to protect him.    
  
Where have you been all my life, Robert thinks, as he watches Aaron use his shirt to wipe Roberts fingerprints of the railing.    
  
 

* * *

 

 

Now Robert doesn’t have to wonder how it got like this, he knows. What he does wonder is how he let this happen. When did he plan on fucking and fun turning into… this? Something he’s so scared of, he can’t put it into words.    
  
Something he'd kill for to protect.    
  
_Gone inside your talk, inside your smile, I'm unraveling._  
  
When did he start writing songs for Aaron, performing them and wishing he was the only one in the room? When did he begin to crave Aarons eyes on him through every line?  
  
“I love you, Robert.” One night, tangled together after Robert had told him it would be one of the last they spent together. Before Katie. “I want more.”    
  
_Love the way you make me feel, I want it all the time_  
  
Had he meant it? Or had he just wanted to stall him, expose him, get a good scandal to surround his first original song performance?    
  
“Feelings don’t come into this, for me,” he had lied. What else could he say?  
  
It _felt_ real.    
  
‘You’re not good enough to be loved by anyone good, Robert’, a niggling voice in the back of his head played on a loop.    
  
Was _Aaron_ good? 

He felt good, they felt good together. But Robert knew there was a darkness, secrets behind the soft looks and hard set jaw. There was something Aaron wasn’t telling him, something he wouldn’t admit to.  
  
Robert felt like he scrapped the surface of it when he first saw Aaron’s scars. White lines across his torso promising a life of pain and a skin of hatred well lived in and Aaron was barely 23.    
  
Robert wanted nothing more than to search every hidden corner of Aaron until he found everything, until he found what he was looking for.    
  
A reason to leave Chrissie. A reason to finish things with Aaron.    
  
He didn’t know which he wanted more.  Easy or hard, easy or worth it?  
  
“That song was for me, wasn’t it,” Aaron pries, needy hands, greedy hand reaching out to touch. Robert needs to learn to say no.    
  
Two flat palms on Aaron's' chest, meant to push away but always pulling him in.    
  
_Stay, you're in my head, you're in my words, even when you're gone._  
  
“Does it matter?” His mouth is against Aaron's' ear and he’s needy now, needing Aaron more than anything. Needs to know Aaron in a way no one else does. Needs Aaron to know him back.    
  
He needs to forget why this is wrong.    
  
_Hate the way you make me feel, you're all that’s on my mind._  
  
“I thought feelings didn’t come into this for you,” Aaron's' head is pulled back and he’s looking right into Robert as though he can see his intentions written across his face. There’s a small smile forming and Robert wants to kiss it away. Aaron is good, too good to set his hopes on a happy ending.    
  
Is that what either of them really want?  
  
Or would that take away the thrill?  
  
“Aaron- _you know_ -“ Robert can’t say the words back yet, don’t know if he’ll ever be able to. Remembers his father telling him that wanting a boy was _sick_ so what does loving one make him?  
  
“You turned out to be more than what I expected,” is what he says instead.    
  
Aaron's smile gets bigger, meets his eyes as though he _knows_.    
  
When was anything else unspoken so simple? When did that become all someone wanted from Robert? Everyone else always wants and takes but Aaron… he wants with a passion but he _gives_ too.   
  
Robert blocks out the noise in his head by throwing himself into Aaron. Blocks the questions and ignores the answers he knows, but that he’s not ready to face yet.    
  
And the way Aaron grips his throat and kisses him sweetly through his climax makes Robert wonder if he’s found what he was looking for after all.    
  
_Should have seen the water rising now I'm in too deep_  
  


* * *

 

  
But it turns out even Aaron wants too much.    
  
"I know you love me, Rob. Don't you see how much better it would be if we didn't have to hide"    
  
_If it was that simple, every morning there'd be roses by your window_

Robert wants to rewind things, go back to before Katie, before feelings. He wonders if it would make a difference.  

Were they always destined for this?    
  
_Just don't leave me out, especially when you're the one I care about_  
  
"Aaron, I'm getting married to Chrissie. I love her."       
  
(Does he? He feels like he used to, but now he's not so sure. Aaron's taken over everything. Aaron and guilt.)  

_Every evening there'd be sweating in our bedroom_  
  
He's still lying to her. Still carrying on with her as though nothing has changed. It hasn't really though.    
  
He still performs most weekends, headlines even. His records are selling well and when his album is released in the next year, he's going to be _famous._  
  
And a beautiful producer, trophy wife rolled into one is going to do wonders for his PR.    
  
"You can do it without her, without Lawrence and his money. You've got talent."    
  
_But tell me 'bout your 9 to 5's, you can even tell me lies_  
  
Robert wants to laugh at the irony because the one person who believes in him is the person he doesn't have the balls to believe in back.    
  
"What are we going to do, Aaron? Runaway and become a poster for gay relationships in showbiz? Or chuck that in completely and live in a cottage in Emmerdale, working on farms and in your families garage. Grow up!"    
  
_Tell me why you wanna' live your life in limbo_  
  
He doesn’t want that. Neither of them does, not really. No, he wants Chrissie, he's sure of that now.    
  
_Let's go half in life, I don't need so many things to myself_  
  
"You can shove me away all you want Robert, but you can't hide what we are!" Aaron shouts at his back, as Robert stalks away, leaving Aaron alone in his dressing room.    
Robert knows he can't. Feels like every step he takes away from Aaron is a mistake.    
  
_I've been going through some things, you can help._    
  
He goes anyway.    
  
He knows, deep down, he'll be back soon.  
 

* * *

 

  
 But then things end.    
  
 Aaron almost out's Robert and even though Robert's willing to let that go, suddenly Aaron's had enough.  
  
("I'm not living my life in the closet for you, Robert.")  
  
("I'm not your second choice.")    
  
("I deserve better.")    
  
It feels like Aaron's performance was a test to see if he could push Robert in the direction he wants him. It failed.  
  
Robert buries the part of him that wishes he could convince Aaron that he is worth fighting for.    
  
Robert marries Chrissie. All the family and a reporter from Hello! Magazine in the front seat.    
  
Aaron in the back row, his eyes burning holes into Roberts back. Robert knows why he's here, what he's hoping for. It makes him feel transparent like the light is shining through him and everyone can see.    
  
Everyone can see the mistake he's made.    
  
Aaron can see the mistake he's made and Robert can see it's the end.  
 

* * *

 

Before he knows it, Roberts touring.    
  
His album has skyrocketed in the charts and he's traveling to and from every major city in the country, Chrissie by his side every step. He sits by her side in interviews and lie's, tells the hosts she's the inspiration behind all his songs.  
  
_I'm with you and it's not the same_  
  
He hopes wherever Aaron is, that he isn’t listening.    
  
He texts, he calls. Aaron doesn't answer.    
  
He knows he's been signed to another label. He also knows he's still performing a night a week at the White Room as a favour to Lawrence, to get out of his contract.    
  
Yet when he see's him there for the first time in month's it feels like the breath has been knocked out of him.    
  
_I know why he's still dancing in my brain_  
  
Aaron clocks him, starts to walk away. Robert follows him to an empty corridor, can hear the music thudding behind them.    
  
I love you, he thinks, please don't leave me.  

_I know why I've been leaving things unsaid._  
  
Liquor and loss make him bold. "Do you think there's a universe where we get it right?" He's desperate to say something that will make Aaron stay, desperate to clean up the mess he's made of them.  
  
His hands are grabbing and desperate.  
  
_I'm sleeping in the wrong bed._  
  
"What?" Aaron's surprise has wiped all traces of anger from his face. Robert wants to hold him, be held by him.    
  
"Do you think there's... there's an alternate reality almost. Where we go out to dinner, we take it in turn to pay. Where we fall asleep together and wake up next to each other. We do all the normal milestones couples do. I tell you I love you. Ask you to marry me. A world where we don't fuck it up, where I don't fuck it up." It's the closest thing to a romantic speech Roberts ever gotten to.    
  
_We could play that game forever, scratching out each other's scars._  
  
It's more real than the words he spoke on his wedding day.  
  
Aarons' face is softer, "I think some kinds of love are meant to batter you, to burn you up. That's how they change you."    
  
Hope, bubbling beneath the surface, but there none the less. It's dangerous. "Then why can't we be together?"    
  
_Tell me how would that be better, wouldn't get us very far_ .  
  
Robert's drunk and doesn't know what he's asking for. He know's he's not ready to come out and so does Aaron.  
  
"Just because we have something that’s so powerful it can... it can ruin us both, doesn't mean we get a happy ending Rob. Sometimes you just don't get the people you want. And that... that's okay, that's life. It just means we won't ever forget each other." It's the most Robert has heard Aaron say in one sitting, without constant prompting.    
  
All to tell him it's the end.    
  
Maybe he's right. Maybe he'll stay with Chrissie, become even more famous, even richer. Maybe he'll get everything he thought he wanted, except Aaron.  
  
In another life.  
  
In the next life, maybe.    
  
_I thought that I would never doubt it, till' the day it fell apart_.  
  
Robert learned at the age of 14, that the people who love you, sometimes leave. He learned again at the age of 30 that the people you love the most aren't always the ones that stay.    
  
Some sparks are meant to burn you alive. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> The songs in order are, 
> 
> Casanova. - Denitia and Sene  
> Got It - Marian Hill  
> Mistaken - Marian Hill  
> Thinking - Marian Hill  
> Deep - Marian Hill  
> Face - Christian Rich featuring Denitia and Sene  
> I Know Why - Marian Hill 
> 
> (also, I just started a tumblr   
> [Link text](https://between-twolungs.tumblr.com/)  
> find me here!)
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos if you have time!  
> Lil x


End file.
